Neither Cast Ye Your Pearls Before Swine

Gilbert Beebe (1800 - 1881)

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your
pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet,
and turn again and rend you." Matthew 7:6

This text is found in the closing part of what is familiarly
termed, "Christ's Sermon on the Mount," in which he taught them
privately, and gave them lessons of instruction, which are the
greatest importance to the saints in all subsequent ages. These
instructions should often be examined and re-examined by the
children of God, as they are given for their special benefit, and
contain admonitions and precepts of the most vital importance.
From the rich cluster of golden maxims and rules laid down for the
observance of the disciples of the Redeemer in this sermon, we are
requested to give our views on the text written at the head of this
article, to which we will call the especial attention of the readers.

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs." The things which
were holy under the ceremonial law were the things which were
especially consecrated, or sanctified (set apart) for holy purposes, as
were the tabernacle, the ark, the altar and the consecrated things
of the inner temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, The tribes themselves,
being solemnly set apart from all the families of mankind,
were ceremonially holy, and forbidden to intermingle with the
other nations of the earth, and as a consecrated and holy people
they were to live on consecrated and holy food; they were forbidden
to eat that which was common or unclean. Of all the beasts of the
field, none but those which divided the hoof and chewed the cud
were set apart by the special enactment of the Lord as the
consecrated or holy sustenance of the consecrated tribes of the
Lord, and these consecrated things must not be polluted by contact
with other things which were not set apart; no mixture with anything
else was allowed. All this was undoubtedly to signify to
us that God's chosen and redeemed people, who are born of God,
receive from him spiritual and immortal life, which must be fed
and sustained on spiritual and immortal food. This lesson is
taught us in all the types and shadows going before. For instance,
when God had created man out of the dust of the ground, He
provided that the food necessary for man's subsistence should
grow out of the same dust of the ground. His nature and
composition being of the earth, earthy, his subsistence must, to be
adapted to the support of his earthly nature, be also earthy; and
when man had transgressed the law of God and fallen under the
curse, the earth out of which he was to subsist was also cursed for
his sake, that it might be still adapted to his nature as a fallen,
sinful earthy man. So in the figure, we are taught that in the
spiritual creation in Christ Jesus, they who are born of the Spirit
of God must be sustained on spiritual things-, as their spiritual life
is in God, so is all their spiritual food and sustenance. The
productions of the earth cannot feed and sustain the inward man,
nor can all the joys of the Spirit, which do feed and sustain the new
man, prevent the old man, the earthy nature, from requiring its
earthly nourishment. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and
that flesh is of the earth, earthy, and cannot be sustained without
that food which is produced from the earth, and he that is born of
God, although he might possess all the produce of the earth, would
starve if he were not fed on that bread which cometh down from
heaven. Except we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus, we have
no spiritual life in us, for spiritual life can live on nothing else.
Those who are thus born of God are a "chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people," etc., chosen, consecrated
and set apart, "sanctified by God the Father," "elect according to
the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the
Spirit," etc., cleansed and washed, purged and justified, they
shall be called the holy people, and as a holy,
consecrated people, they are made partakers of the divine nature,
and qualified to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man,
who is the true bread which came down from heaven.

Then the things which are holy are appropriated exclusively to a holy
people, a people whom God has cleansed, and which, we are
forbidden, to call common. This sanctified people are called sheep,
lambs and doves, and by many other figurative names, but they
are never called dogs or swine. A dog is a very different kind of
animal from a sheep or lamb; he neither divides the hoof, nor does
he chew the cud, he is therefore unclean. His disposition is also
very unlike that of the sheep or lamb; he is ferocious, quarrelsome,
vicious, and, like the wolf, it is his nature to worry, scatter and kill
the sheep. His food, or that on which the dog subsists, is not that
which would feed the sheep and lambs, nor can the sheep and
lambs subsist on what the dog can feed upon. The dog would
starve in the richest pasture field, where the sheep would fatten,
and the sheep starve if fed only on what dogs delight to feed
upon. Dogs are dangerous animals, and we are admonished to
beware of them. Some of them are said to be dumb dogs that
cannot bark; sleepy dogs, lying down, loving slumber, and greedy
dogs that can never have enough. In Revelation 22:15, they are
classified with sorcerers, whoremongers, murderers, idolaters,
and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

The admonition of the Lord in our text then clearly means that
his disciples shall not give, nor minister the gospel, or its
provisions, its promises, its comforts, its ordinances, or any of its
commands, to any who are thus designated dogs, or who are in
nature, disposition, practice or appetite as unlike the regenerated
and spiritual people of God as dogs are unlike and inimical to the
sheep and lambs. The gospel is food to the saints, because it is
Christ; the preaching of the gospel is preaching Christ, and it is
food to the spiritual, and hence the ministers of the gospel are
commissioned to feed the sheep and feed the lambs; to feed the
flock of God which he hath purchased with his own blood, but
charged to give not that which is holy (and the gospel and all its
ordinances are holy) to dogs. Dogs have no use for holy things, they
can do them no good, for they are not adapted to their nature or
suited to their appetites; besides, it is a desecration of holy things
to give them to dogs or to swine. It is true, that the Gospel is to be
preached to every creature, to all nations, and in all the world, for
a witness to all nations, but only those who have ears to hear can
hear what the Spirit saith to the churches. The ministers of Christ
have nothing but the Gospel to preach, and that they must preach
wherever God is pleased to open a door for them to preach, and its
effect will be to discriminate between the living and the dead. All
who have been pricked in the heart by the life-giving power of the
Spirit will gladly receive the Word, as did the quickened on the day
of Pentecost, while all others will mock and reject the testimony.
But what we understand as being intended by this admonition, is
that we are forbidden to attempt to Christianize unregenerated
men, by teaching them the letter of the Word, and applying to them
the ordinances of the Gospel as a means of salvation, by Catechisms,
Bible classes, Sunday Schools, etc...as though we could so improve
their carnal minds as to make them acceptable to God,
without being born of the Spirit.

According to our understanding of the subject, every effort to
apply the things of the Spirit of God to unregenerated men, is to give
that which is holy to dogs. Theological institutions for giving
ministerial qualifications to graceless youths for preaching, and to
unrenewed children and adults for church membership, and for
evangelizing the world by humanly devised plans and schemes, is
an attempt to give that which is holy to the dogs, and is clearly a
transgression of the authority of our Lord, and an open violation
of the words of our text: "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs,
neither cast ye your pearls before swine." It is not in the nature
of swine to appreciate the value or beauty of pearls any more than
it is the nature of dogs to relish the rich pasture on which the sheep
feed. The children of God are in possession of jewels of inestimable
value, which none but the children of God can appreciate or enjoy.
Their spiritual privileges, their Christian love and fellowship, their
gifts and graces, their experimental joys and peculiar exercises,
their knowledge of divine things, are all pearls of great value to
them, but their excellency cannot be known or appreciated by
those who know not God. There is a fitness and utility in
exhibiting these pearls among those of like precious faith, but
those who have never possessed them would rudely trample on
them if cast before them, as swine would trample upon the most
costly and precious jewels.

Christians are greatly edified and comforted by speaking
often to each other of all the way in which the Lord
has led them; they can talk freely one to another of their
joys and sorrows their conflicts and victories, but should they
make these things the theme of their conversation in the streets
and market places, or in the synagogues of Satan, they would be
treated roughly; infidels, Arminians, will-worshipers, like swine,
would trample them under their feet, and turn and rend the child
of grace. The psalmist said, "Come and hear, all ye that fear God,
and I will declare what He hath done for my soul." They who fear
the Lord can understand the language, they know too well the
value of such precious pearls to despise or trample on them. But
those who have only religion of the world neither divide the
hoof nor chew the cud and like swine , serve only their swinish
appetites, their god is their belly and their glory is their shame.
The swine seem to have but one desire, and that is the gratification
of their ravenous appetite-, cast before them the most costly and
splendid gems, or pearls, and as they cannot eat them, they have
no other use for them, and they would as soon trample on them as
on the most common earth, and they will turn again and rend you,
determined to obtain something that they can eat; so when the
Christian attempts to display the glorious things of the kingdom
of Christ to unbelievers, they will sometimes be surprised to find
that those with whom they labor cannot appreciate those experimental
things of which they speak. Expostulate with them, and demonstrate
what you say by the most clear and positive Scripture authority, and
they will disregard your testimony and your Scripture, and trample both
under their feet, and then assail you again with as much vigor and
determined violence as though you had not exhibited to them your pearls.

Sheep, swine and dogs are not suitable companions for each
other, they cannot live in good communion together, nor should
unnatural amalgamation be attempted, but let the sheep be
associated with sheep, and let them "beware of dogs," and avoid
the society of swine, and they will be more pleasantly and
comfortably situated. The great and good Shepherd has told his
flock, Ye "are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." He
has chosen them out of the world, and called them to be a separate
people. Let us then heed the admonition of our Lord, and give not
that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast our pearls before
swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and
rend us.

The Preceding Classic is from the November 1, 1862 edition of the
publication "Signs of the Times" founded and published for over 45
years by Elder Gilbert Beebe.